A public service announcement for those who, like me, enjoyed watching the adventures of Richard Sharpe, ably portrayed by Sean Bean, an up from the ranks officer in the British 95th Rifles during the Napoleonic Wars. Two new episodes are being broadcast on PBS this week and next. Go here and here for the details chosen guys and gals.

The President of Worse Than Murder, Inc, aka Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards has thanked all the nuns who helped get the pro-abort version of ObamaCare passed. My emphasis added:

And in the last days, when Congressman Stupak and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops threatened to bring down health care reform completely over their narrow demands, the true heroine for women’s health was Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She never blinked. In the final hours, when congressional leadership and the White House were scrambling for any vote they could get to reach the magic 216, Speaker Pelosi put herself in the way of the anti-choice steamroller. In private and in public, she vowed that there would be no health care bill if it included the Stupak abortion ban.

And in the final days before the bill was passed, it was the Roman Catholic nuns who most importantly broke with the bishops and the Vatican to announce their support for health care reform. This brave and important move, demonstrating that they cared as much about the health care of families in America as they did about church hierarchy, was a critical demonstration of support. Bart Stupak may not ask the nuns for advice, as he recently announced to the press, but maybe next time he should.

At Planned Parenthood, we’re committed to fight to change the egregious Nelson language in the bill that President Obama signed today, which unjustly treats abortion coverage differently than all other health care. As providers of health care to three million people every year, Planned Parenthood health centers are also prepared to roll up their sleeves and help get more Americans the health care they need. We are pleased that the health care reform bill will extend coverage to millions of women and guarantee access to affordable, lifesaving screenings for breast and cervical cancer and other preventive tests. Women will no longer need to live in fear of being dropped by an insurer because of a pre-existing condition. And, in a huge victory for women’s reproductive health, this bill will significantly increase insurance coverage of reproductive health care, including family planning.

It has been a long and difficult process to get health care passed, and the work isn’t over yet. But we need more than health care; we need women and men elected to office who will stand up for our health and our rights, even when it’s hard. So here’s to the women leaders in Congress — and to the nuns — and to the women everywhere who were counting on them. They need our gratitude and our support.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume Two, Part Four, Chapter Six: What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear:

I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. Each of them, withdrawn and apart, is like a stranger to the destiny of all the others: his children and his particular friends form the whole human species for him; as for dwelling with his fellow citizens, he is beside them, but he does not see them; he touches them and does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone, and if a family still remains for him, one can at least say that he no longer has a native country.